This is the future of smartphones, as Palm sees it. Palm is a veteran of the PDA and smartphone wars — they have a deep legacy in creating products that can take the position of your “second brain”. Palm Pre is the first of new smartphones running Palm’s brand new operating system, the webOS.
About the Palm Pre smartphone
The revolutionary Palm Pre will make your life simpler by always being one step ahead. The Palm Pre will pull each of your online calendars into a single, easy-to-view screen, so you’ll always be on top of your appointments, and it will automatically link all your contacts from different sources, letting you easily find what you need when you need it. Whether you are sending emails or text messages, browsing the web, listening to music, or simply making a phone call, the Palm Pre makes everything easier than ever.
Buy the Palm Pre smartphone at Amazon
Palm Pre in closed form, with keyboard hidden
Palm Pre with keyboard open
Palm Synergy Brings Your Calendars and Contacts Together
The Palm Pre features Synergy technology, which gathers all your information from different sources and puts them together in one place for you to see. Instead of having your information scattered in different screens, the Pre automatically brings them together so you can easily find what you need. If you have calendars from Microsoft Outlook, Google, and Facebook, Synergy will automatically gather all your appointments and put them into one easy-to-view calendar, so you won’t miss an appointment again.
The Pre also makes managing your contacts simple — not only will it gather your contacts from different places such as Google, Exchange, LinkedIn and Facebook, but if you have the same contacts in different places, this revolutionary phone will automatically link them together so they show up just once. And all your conversations with the same person will automatically be gathered into one chat-style view. For example, if you start a conversation via text message with someone, the Pre lets you quickly reply via IM or email.
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Sleek, Attractive Design with Easy-to-Use Keyboard
The Palm Pre features a sleek design that looks great and fits easily into your pocket. It measures 2.3 x 3.9 x 0.67 inches (WxHxD) and weighs just 4.75 ounces. The pebble-shaped phone has a beautiful 3.1-inch touch screen with a vibrant 24-bit color 320×480 resolution display that lets you watch videos in full widescreen format. When it’s time to write an email, you don’t have to settle for a small onscreen keyboard. Simply slide out the QWERTY keyboard for fast and accurate text input. The Palm Pre has 8GB of built-in memory and uses a standard 3.5mm stereo headphone jack so you can connect any headphone you want.
3G, Wi-Fi, and GPS Keeps You Connected
The Palm Pre is smartly connected to the Internet all the time, so you’ll always have quick access to your email, calendars, and other information. When you are on the road, the Pre connects to Sprint’s 3G network for Internet connectivity wherever you are. Sprint’s 3G network is America’s most dependable and provides outstanding speed and performance. If you are home or near a Wi-Fi hotspot, the Pre can also connect to it for even faster connectivity. And with GPS functionality built in, the Pre will let you look up directions or nearby points of interest even if you’re not sure where you are.
Live Email that Connects with Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync
The Palm Pre features live email, which means that whenever you get a new email, it is pushed directly onto your phone. You don’t have to wait manually push a refresh button or wait for a scheduled sync. And if your email has attachments, you can view audio, video, images, and other documents directly on the Pre. For business users, the Pre can connect to your work email through Microsoft Exchange Activesync, making things easy for your IT department.
WebOS Operating System Lets You Multitask and Do More
The Palm Pre runs Palm’s new webOS, which lets you keep multiple applications open at the same time and move easily between them. Each application is represented by an on-screen card. You can flip through the cards, move them around, or throw them off the screen to close the application.
The webOS features universal search capability, so if you need to find anything, simply start typing. The Pre will first search through your contacts and applications to see if it can find what you’re looking for, and then it will offer to search Google, Google Maps, Wikipedia or Twitter. No matter what you’re looking for, the Pre will quickly help you find it.
 Watch videos in full widescreen format. View larger. |
If you receive a text message or have a calendar appointment coming up, the webOS will let you know you with a small, unobtrusive notification on the bottom of the screen. You’ll always know what’s going on without being completely interrupted.
Take and View Photos, Watch Videos, and Listen to Music
The Pre lets you take great pictures with the built-in three-megapixel camera with LED flash. You can also watch widescreen videos on the beautiful screen, or buy songs from the Amazon MP3 store and listen to them with the built-in music player.
Download Applications Directly Onto Your Phone
The Pre’s App Catalog makes it easy to download new applications by simply browsing for them and downloading them directly to your phone. By downloading additional optional applications, you can do more with your phone.
Automatic Over-the-Air Back Up
The over-the-air Palm Services automatically backs up your data and lets you restore it — all without connecting to your computer. If your phone is lost or stolen, you can even remote erase everything on it. Additionally, the phone will automatically receive software updates so it will always be up to date.
Buy the Palm Pre smartphone at Amazon
Palm Pre promotional video
What’s in the Box
- Palm Pre smartphone
- standard lithium ion battery
- AC travel charger
- carry pouch
- USB cable
- 3.5mm stereo headset.
Buy the Palm Pre smartphone at Amazon
Palm Pre Reviews
Steven Levy (Wired):
It’s a huge win … The Pre emphatically shows that Palm has not reached the stage of suffixes. And multitasking rules!
Walt Mossberg, at the Wall Street Journal:
The Pre is a smart, sophisticated product that will have particular appeal for those who want a physical keyboard. It is thoughtfully designed, works well and could give the iPhone and BlackBerry strong competition — but only if it fixes its app store and can attract third-party developers.
Mark Spoonauer (Laptop Magazine):
We’ve seen many smart phones come and go since the original iPhone, and the Palm Pre is the first device we’ve tested whose user interface not only matches up well to Apple’s offering, but also beats it in some areas. … Palm and Sprint have a hit on their hands with the Pre, and the webOS is a smart phone platform to be reckoned with.
Joshua Topolsky (Engadget):
To put it simply, the Pre is a great phone, and we don’t feel any hesitation saying that. Is it a perfect phone? Hell no. Does its OS need work? Definitely. But are any of the detracting factors here big enough to not recommend it? Absolutely not. There’s no doubt that there’s room for improvement in webOS and its devices, but there’s also an astounding amount of things that Palm nails out of the gate.
David Pogue (The New York Times):
So do the Pre’s perks (beautiful hardware and software, compact size, keyboard, swappable battery, flash, multitasking, calendar consolidation) outweigh its weak spots (battery life, slow program opening, ringer volume, Sprint network)? Oh, yes indeedy.
Jason Chen (Gizmodo):
The software is agile, smart and capable. The hardware, on the other hand, is a liability. If Palm can get someone else to design and build their hardware–someone who has hands and can feel what a phone is like when physically used, that phone might just be one of the best phones on the market.
Boy Genius Report:
The OS is great. There’s no ifs ands or buts; it’s really refreshing to see something that’s brand new with a UI unlike anything else out there. The only problem with this is, Palm’s never been a hardware company that anyone’s really cared about. … we’re pretty confident once people are able to play a real unit themselves, there will be more than a lot of happy Palm Pre customers.
Bonnie Cha (CNET) :
Palm Pre offers gadget lovers and consumers well-integrated features and unparalled multitasking capabilities. The hardware could be better, but more importantly, Palm has developed a solid OS that not only rivals the competition but also sets a new standard in the way smartphones handle tasks and manage information.
Ginny Miles (PC World) :
The long-awaited Palm Pre lives up to the hype with a responsive touchscreen and an engaging interface.
Om Malik (GigaOM) :
…it is a pretty good-looking device, but it feels a little plasticky and is lower in build quality than a BlackBerry. It is squat, has a nice screen, and is easy to grip. It is round in the right places.
Stephen Wildstrom (BusinessWeek) :
If the Palm Pre had appeared a year ago, it might have turned the smartphone market upside down. It would have beaten out Apple’s iPhone 3G and the iTunes App Store, Google’s Android, the BlackBerry Bold and Storm as well as BlackBerry App World, and possibly taken the spoils.
Peter Svensson (Associated Press):
Move over, iPhone. You’ve had two years on top of the smart phone world. Now there’s a touch-screen phone with better software: the Palm Pre. In a remarkable achievement, Palm Inc., a company that was something of a has-been, has come up with a phone operating system that is more powerful, elegant and user-friendly.
Ed Baig (USA Today):
The first Palm Pre will certainly give the iPhone and other rivals a run for their money. To be sure, there are areas where it could improve: Bring on the apps. But Palm has delivered a device that will keep it in the game and give it a chance to star in it.
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